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Larry Nassar Files For Resentencing, Blames Judge For Being Biased

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Evie Fordham Politics and Health Care Reporter
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Convicted sexual abuser and former sports doctor Larry Nassar filed for resentencing on Tuesday, blaming Judge Rosemarie Aquilina for failing to be an “unbiased and impartial judge,” his attorneys said.

Aquilina sentenced Nassar on Jan. 23 to 40 to 175 years in state prison for 10 sexual assault charges. He will go to state prison if he survives his 60-year federal prison sentence for child pornography, reported the Lansing State Journal.

“I just signed your death warrant,” she told Nassar at the January sentencing. (RELATED: ‘Sister Survivors’ Of Larry Nassar Accept Arthur Ashe Courage Award At ESPYS)

Nassar filed two motions in Ingham County Circuit Court in Michigan Tuesday. One motion asked for resentencing after what he says was an invalid sentence by Aquilina. The other would disqualify Aquilina from sentencing him and seek a new judge.

“Judge Aquilina made numerous statements throughout the proceedings indicating that she had already decided to impose the maximum allowed by the sentence agreement even before the sentencing hearing began,” Nassar’s attorneys wrote in the filing, reported Sports Illustrated. “Thus, from the defendant’s perspective the sentencing hearing was just a ritual.”

Nassar’s filing came on the same day that Nassar survivors testified at a Senate hearing about protecting amateur athletes from abuse, reported The Detroit News.

“He really wants to sit through all of that again?” Jacob Denhollander, husband of Nassar victim Rachael Denhollander, wrote on Twitter Wednesday. Rachael Denhollander testified at the hearing against Nassar that Aquilina presided over.

An appeal of Nassar’s federal sentence that he filed in April is still pending, reported the Lansing State Journal. His filing argued that the three 20-year federal sentences he was ordered to serve were calculated based on guidelines that wrongly took his state sexual assault convictions into account.

The sentence lengths were proper and subject to the sentencing judge’s discretion, disputed the U.S. Attorney’s Office, according to the Lansing State Journal.

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